*This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate(tm) Pro*didnt think so....
On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 02:10:36PM +0800, Joel Realubit wrote:
I guess what's stopping Sun is the prospect that, if they open up their Java specifications, Microsoft will run away with their own Java implementation (again).
Isn't Microsoft already doing this? Cough...cough... C# and .NET ..cough.
while i'm not sure if specs can be "GPL'd" (can it?),
No, they can't.
Nobody is forced to follow specifications anyhow,uh, well, what makes a python implementation "python"? or what makes a TCP/IP stack a "TCP/IP" stack? the standards need not be "legally binding" for a specification to take its effect. you'd have a hard time calling your implementation of python, "python", if, for example, you allowed users to not make any indentations in their code. of course this all depends on the specs itself -- you can have a spec like the Single UNIX specification and unless you certify your OS with the Open Group that it is compliant with the specs, you wont be able to call your OS "UNIX" (i believe FreeBSD is an example of this -- to all intents and purposes it IS a UNIX but they can't call their OS "UNIX" outright). in the case of Java, it all depends on exactly how Sun would open up their specifications beyond what they are doing now with their JSR's.
unless a binding legal agreement that comes up when you obtain the specs
forces you to do so.
why WOULDN'T they? i mean, if the standards are out in the open (i.e., specs are submitted to a public standards body), all previous smacking MS got from Sun would not be relevant anymore, and nothing would stop MS from implementing their own Java and still call it "Java" or some such variation... and THEN append ".NET" to it. given that MS is MS, i dont think they are above that. probably the only thing that would hold MS back would be the fact that they've already invested so much on C#/.NET. OTOH, they could "pretend" to just support Java openly again, and then try steering it back to "well hey C# still does the job better than java afterall" later on. the solution to this, i think, would be for Sun to simultaneously open-source their JDK's and JREs, so everyone can have a hand in Java development as a whole, no matter what MS does. (and it would be interesting to see what IBM does when this happens)This is what Sun was afraid of the first time, that a de facto Java standard with gratuitous incompatibilities introduced by MS would appear, and they smacked Microsoft good in court for it. Who benefited more in the long run though remains to be seen.
if they suddenly release their JDK and JRE's as open-source projects,
then i dont think microsoft will be able to steal enough thunder to
dominate Java development as a whole.
Why would they want to dominate Java development at all? Sun already smacked them for trying their old tricks a few years ago, so now they've stolen several key ideas from Java and J2EE and are incorporating them into the .NET framework.
This whole thing is beginning to remind me of Netscape vs. Microsoft and the browser wars. If Sun later decides to open source Java, it'll wind up looking like Mozilla does today, but Sun may very well reap more benefits from doing so than Netscape does, as Java and its associated ideas are far more than just a browser. The earlier they do it the greater their benefits will be.
hopefully, if Sun does let Java go as ESR says, there would be a chance that Java's tendency to get more and more complex as more and more APIs are piled on, would be tempered by more input from the open-source community.
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